Brazilian Maverick rebuild

Any more pics of the front suspension upper coil-over mount and its installation? Im curious about bracing as that area of the was not intended for that kind of side loading... or is it? The upper control arms mount there also but might not exert as much force as the coil-over does.

Thanks. You are making this all look WAY too easy. Good work.

 

Relax man!


GrabberGT this help?





Cheers!!

 

Thanks. It just looks so painfully simple. Know anyone using this setup already. Do they track their cars? What kind of front end bracing are they using to keep it all together? I might be doing something similar to this in the future and would like to know what kind of abuse it can take. I push my car pretty hard and wouldnt want something to fail.

Thanks.

 

I am just trying to help you out. When I see something that is not even close to being correct I try to say something. I have shown your pictures of your set up to a few people I know that has also done 4 link set ups in cars and 4x4's and they all agree that the geometry is way off and they all say they would not run it. I would seriously find a 4 link calculator and enter in your current information and it will show you what you truely have.

I don't want to see after you are done the axle flip or a suspension set up that binds or rolls due to improper geometry.

I knew of a person that oput together a suspension set up I did not agree with and I didn't say anything. On his first extended drive, the suspension failed and the axle tore out of the car which caused him to loose control and hit the guard rail and cut back across 3 lanes of traffic. He was lucky he was not hurt worse or that he did not hurt someone else.

 

First off, having the photo of the front suspension in the same post as the discussion about the rear 4 link got confusing

Doing a rear 4 link like this, I can only compare it to 78 to 86 GM Metric chassis cars that I built for oval track racing from 1990 until 2004. Those cars used a rear setup almost identical to the angles of the top links in your photos. GM built them that way instead of using a panhard bar to locate the rear. Any binds came from the top links flexing, through up /down travel, in order to also hold the rear centered between the frame rails. At one time, the rules said that we had to use the stock links in building our cars and we dealt with some bindage because the links would not move through their travel well with the stock pressed in rubber bushings. Later on we welded in some threaded tubing into the front of the links, used heim ends, and that freed things up quite a bit. Eventually, the track let us build a 3 link system, using aluminum bars and all heim ends and we built this with all bars pointing forward and used all heim ends. Plus now we used a panhard bar to locate the rear and later on I played around with a Watts Link which worked very very well.

Bottom line on my imput is:
will it bind: it will some
will it work: it did in the GM cars so I suppose it will
is it the best: no

And that is my 2 cents woth for today

 

One issue that will cause binding on any 4link triangulated setup is not having the attachment bolts for the upper and lower arms not parallel with the ground....................this is a given.
As Mav1970 mentioned this type of triangulated 4link has been used on some OEM cars and some road race cars, and it does do away with having to have a panhard or watts type system. I have seen similar types of setups on a few of the SCCA GT1 and GT2 cars, now having said that I have no idea how good they perform, but at least one of these cars did win quite a few races.
As for the front setup, it looks fine to me..................I'm no expert, but have seen similar setups on early Mustangs. The shock tower was originally over designed and will take a tremendous amount of lateral force.......although some bracing probably woundn't hurt.................IMHO

 

Mine are level but I had to go up through the floorboards to get the tops that way



and a Watts Linkage will locate the rear instead of a panhard bar

 

very good, my friends! a real lesson! we must consider that, a suspension for off road 4 links need a lot course and very long upper links, since for a street/race car 3 inches of travel is enough. After the installation of the suspension, we removed the springs to check the course and if was moving freely .. without pressing or forcing any link, nor upper nor inferior.
the suspension travel without the springs reach about 12 or 14 inches .. and with the springs, 3 or 4! this without forcing anything! then I'm sure it will not break.

Not to mention that this manufacturer is very reputable and not sell a suspension that would not work or easily brake.

I really love the watts linkage,but, to me will be too expensive to import an entire suspension...I would love...but...

well .. the thing is, wait and see. I've heard good comments about this suspension, but only'll make sure testing.
And it will take a bit for it.

this kits are very similar

http://www.ridetech.com/store/1964-1970-ford-mustang-airbar.html

http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/t...-new-product-release-triangulated-4-link.html

thanks for all, friends!
Thanks Cruzin by main worry and raise this doubt.
That's why I love this forum!

once again,I am so sorry for my sucking english!! I promise to improve!!

cheers!!!

 

BTW..in front ,I am planning to use a custom montecarlo bar and a pair of camaro front braces (radiator to fender) and,of course tower braces (which by the way,will be one of the most beautiful parts of the engine bay.):bananaman

next week I will post some pics

 

a watts link is very easy to make. its a matter of understanding its function and geometry. you just need some hiem joints, tubing, plate and some hardware.

 

Awesome. Cant wait to see what you come up with.

In regards to the rear suspension... Make sure you are also testing the range of motion for each side. Left one side drop while raising the other. You will see this kind of motion if you turn into a driveway or sidestreet that goes up hill or down hill. If there is any binding, this is where youll find it. All beware, your changins in pinion angle. With the sideview length of those upper links being so short your pinion angle is to change dramatically even with just the slightest change in ride height. The mustang suspensions you chowed all have significantly longer upper links which helps to reduce this problem. The Maverick does not have this kind of room.

And speaking of the Ridetech suspension here is a post from the Pres of Ridetech speaking about the modification of one of his suspensions for a Cuda build. He offers some insight on suspension design and what is necessary to make it work properly.

"What you want to end up with is [at ride height] the lower bar to be parallel to the ground [assuming the chassis of the car is parallel to the ground]. If a variation is to be made, it is acceptable for the lower bar to run slightly higher in front than at the axle. That would move your instant center up but won't be a factor except in forward traction [drag racing]. Having the lower bar higher in front will also serve to give you a slight bit of "roll oversteer" and will help the car rotate a bit through the turns. As with anything mechanical, the "best" solution is still the one that sucks the least. I sometimes use lower bar angles to fine tune a rear suspension. Sometimes you can resolve an understeer problem by "rear steering" the car.
The upper bar [again, at ride height] should be about 2 degrees nose down [lower at the front]. With that configuration the theroretical intersection point of the bars [from a side view] would be around the center of the flywheel. While there are mathmatical formulas that seem to dictate the "best" location for the instant center, I have found that on anything less than a finely tuned race car you actually have quite a bit of latitude on the exact instant center point.

Here is what you DON'T want:

1. If the lower bar is "nose down" [lower at the front than the back], the instant center ends up somewhere in infinity [or at least in an incalculable and unknown area] and you can experience tire shake on acceleration. It also induces a lot of pinion angle migration because as the suspension compresses, the bottom of the rear-end housing is pulled forward at an increasingly quicker rate. Another secondary effect is "roll under-steer"...a condition that few cars benefit from.
2. If the upper bar is "nose up" [higher in front than in back] you get the same results as above...an instant center that is ugly, excessive pinion angle migration, and tire shake on acceleration. "

 

When building my stock cars, I always chose to build my link bars as long as possible. The longer the bar, the slower it will change it's angle through it's travel. A short bar will change much quicker and that may not be what you want. That is why I went through my rear floor to get the top bars as long as the bottom bars. If I didn't do it that way, the top bars would have been very short.

The picture of my Watts was home built using a pivot assembly (around 80 dollars) bought from a race parts company called Coleman. The rest is just threaded tubes, heim ends and bolts. If you built your own Watts frame that mounts between the rear frame rails, you would only have to import the small parts

 

We ran a 3 link set up my last 3 stock cars and always began with the lower links level. The top link was always angled down to create that anti-squat to plant the rear end. We used 10 inch Hoosier slicks all around the car and these tires would pick up a lot of garbage in the pits so the driver would take the car out on to the pavement of the track and break the rear tires loose to clean them off. You would actually see the rear frame and body slightly lift off of the rear end instead of squating like occurs in street cars. Another thing I used was the longest panhard bar I could fit in the car to slow down geometry changes to mininumize rear steer (until the Watts was used of course)

 

Talking about the expense of the Watts setup.....................I don't know if you have any wrecking/salvage yards with LandRovers, but they have a very nice Watts set up that a lot of guys have used on hot rods........might be worth a look...........................maybe.

 

Ad for those on the states we have PT Cruisers, Crown Victorias and Mazda Miatas. I know there is more but these come to mind at this time.